Themap below shows the Alsatian Homestead at the beginning of the 2021 renovation.

Rohrbach house on the left and 500′ to the east is the Huegele home. As a kid and having full rein on this land, I trekked everywhere. There is much more in this small area than you might think. Let’s see if you can find these features:

Barns, Log Cabin, Water Wells, Cistern, Riding Arena, watering troughs, hay feeders, plowed and barren field, wooded lane, four pine trees, cattle pens, stored lumber, stored limestone, two tractors, water box, squeeze chute, power line, mustang grape arbor.

The homes are on the border between farming and ranching. Just north of the homes in the photo below is an Oak forest with a grove of special trees. One of them is the Bee Tree. When the beekeeper came to put some boxes on the farm for our crops, he put a few next to the fields for pollination. This was very logical as my father showed him the fields and our survey boundaries. The boxes were temporary and would be gone at the end of their season. It was the nature of the business. When I heard this I was pretty disappointed as kids can be and this probably surprised my dad. Heck, I was only 15. Why can’t the bees stay?

Then the beekeeper turned to me and asked about the farm, the big trees, streams and ponds. He was calm and asked me some very good questions. Where is the biggest tree, where is the tree with a big knot, Where is the tree that is just between the field and the water. Which tree has a knot way up high you cannot climb? Is there a tree like that between the fields and the water?

Now we were getting somewhere as I had assessed every tree down by the pond and in the whole forest. When the season was done, he came to get the boxes and loaded just one on his truck and asked that I show him the tall oak I could not climb with a big knot in a tree joint perfectly placed. We drove down there and this time I felt like he came to see me. He put on his whole bee clothing and commenced to get the queen out of the box and take it up to the knot where he installed it. He left enough worker bees to join the queen in her new home.

It turned out to be a good home for the bees as they are still there forty years later. Maybe there are other trees that they spread to. The knot is definitely smaller than their original box, but they seem happy. Even with some of our biggest dry periods there are perennial streams nearby, a safe home, and fields not too far away with plenty of pollen.